We are studying how badges can be used tomotivate and assess students of all ages.

Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Academy studies how teachers use robots in classrooms to teach Computer Science, Science, Technology Engineering, and Mathematics (CS-STEM). Our mission is to use the motivational effects of robotics to excite students about science and technology. The Robotics Academy fulfills it mission by developing research based solution for teachers that foreground CS-STEM and are classroom tested. Robotics Academy inspired papers and publications can be found here:

Carnegie Mellon’s Robotic Academy staff and development team are housed in the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), where robots for business, government, and industry are designed, prototyped, and tested just outside our office doors.

Changing Culture in Robotics Classrooms

The CCRC project’s goal is to integrate more computational thinking into robotics classrooms. CMRA has seen that many school’s robotic classrooms started because the school became involved with a robotics competition. Many robotic competitions consist of a set of mechanically challenging activities and don’t require sophisticated programming solutions for teams to be successful. This project builds on the existing robotics competition infrastructure and then extends these activities in ways that foreground computational thinking.

Building a Theory of Badges for Computer Science Education

Robotics provide a great opportunity to introduce students to computer science. Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh develops, tests, and refines a Theory of Robotic Programming Badges that can be applied to Computer Science Education. This project builds on lessons learned as CMRA built the Computer Science Student Network and integrates a complete badge system in Robot Virtual Worlds. The project measures the ability of badges to motivate student learning, to be accurate indicators of student performance, and if the badges are easily understood by students.

The Robot Algebra Project

For years we have heard that teachers are using robotics to teach mathematics. This project studied existing (2008) robotics education pedagogy and then developed multiple strategies that foregrounded proportional reasoning, a big idea in mathematics, that can be taught using robots. CMRA developed multiple tools that can help teachers foreground mathematics using robots:

The Computer Science Student Network

The Computer Science Student Network (CS2N) started as a collaborative research project between Carnegie Mellon University and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) designed to increase the number of students pursuing advanced Computer Science and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (CS-STEM) degrees. CS2N has morphed into an online portal where students and teachers can find activities, competitions, and training designed to help them learn basic programming.

The Robotics Corridor Project

The Robotics Corridor Project was a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, Butler County Community College, California University of Pennsylvania, Robert Morris University, Westmoreland County Community College, the Community College of Beaver County, the Community College of Allegheny College, and regional industry partners designed to determine the skill sets that a highly qualified technician would need to work in the robotics and automation industries. This partnership helped establish training, certifications, and associate degrees at the partner schools.

Community

The Robotics Academy actively supports multiple local robotics efforts including FIRST LEGO League, VEX IQ and EDR competitions, May Madness, and our annual Summer of Learning Program. We also support several national outreach projects. To learn more please select the following link:

At Your Site Training: Teacher training brought to your location!

The Robotics Academy’s qualified trainers can come to your site and offer classes for groups of teachers. The cost is $4000 plus expenses for up to 12 students for three days of classes. More than 12 students require a second trainer and increase the cost to $2000/day plus expenses. Total expenses are calculated prior to confirming the teaching dates.

You supply the training room, computers and robots (or robot kits) for the students as well as necessary utilities. In planning for necessary computers and robots, note that students are generally grouped in twos. Call412 681-7160for more information.

New Curricula

The Robotics Academy is pleased to share the following new curricular tools with you.

VEX Robotics

Introduction to Programming VEX IQ

The Introduction to Programming the VEX IQ Curriculum features lesson for the VEX IQ Microcontroller; the curriculum’s focus is to teach beginning programmers how to program using ROBOTC’s graphical programming environment. All of the challenges in the curriculum have are available in the Robot Virtual World simulation environment.

The VEX Cortex Video Trainer is a multimedia-rich curriculum featuring lessons for the VEX CortexMicrocontroller; the curriculum’s focus is to teach how to program, but it also includes multi-faceted engineering challenges, step-by-step videos, and robotics engineering teacher support materials. The majority of the challenge found in the Cortex Video trainer have been simulated in the Robot Virtual World Curriculum Companion.

LEGO Robotics

ROBOTC Graphical Introduction to Programming LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3

The Introduction to Programming the EV3 Curriculum is a curriculum module designed to teach core computer programming logic and reasoning skills using a robotics context. The curriculum consists of three chapters (Basic Movement, Sensors, and Program Flow) and each chapter is broken into units that teach key robotics and programming concepts. Additionally, there is a huge amount of support for teachers competing in Robotics Competitions for the first time included in the teacher’s guide!

The Introduction to Programming EV3 Curriculum is a curriculum module designed to teach core computer programming logic and reasoning skills using a robotics engineering context. It contains a sequence of 10 projects (plus one capstone challenge) organized around key robotics and programming concepts.

New Educational Technologies

Robot Virtual Worlds enable students to program virtual robots using the same code that they use on the physical classroom robots.

Robot Virtual Worlds

Robot Virtual Worlds

No Robot, No Problem! Robot Virtual Worlds is a high-end simulation environment that enables students, without robots, to learn programming. Research has shown that learning to program in RVW is more efficient than learning to program using physical robots. RVW simulates popular real world LEGO robots in 3D environments and allows you to program them using the same languages as physical robots. The RVW environment is perfect for home, classroom, and competition environments!

It’s the year 2023 and Atlantis has been discovered deep in the ocean, off of the coast of Africa. A team of elite scientists and engineers have been sent to investigate the underwater ruins, and you’re one of them! Use your skills to to maneuver the teams underwater vehicles in this expedition to Atlantis!

This is a great GAME that will teach kids the math behind robot movement.

Virtual Brick

Virtual Brick

The Virtual Brick allows you to program virtual robots in the Robot Virtual World software using the same programming languages as you can to program real LEGO robots. This allows students additional practice programming and when used appropriately can help students increase their understanding of scale and rate two BIG IDEAS in mathematics. The Virtual Brick works with the following LEGO compatible software: NXT-G, EV3,and LabVIEW for LEGO MINDSTORMS. The Virtual Brick looks and acts like another LEGO Brain, or Brick to these programs.

Robocamps

GEA offers summer camps, weekend, and after school programs rooted in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), including the Lego WeDo Robotics, Programming with Scratch, Video Game Design, Lego EV3 Robotics, and Coding with RobotC. Find out more at: